Al Calavicci

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Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci is a fictional character on the sci-fi/drama Quantum Leap, created by Donald Bellisario. He was played by Dean Stockwell.

[edit] Biography

Albert Calavicci was born June 15, 1934. His father, who worked in construction, was of Italian descent and his mother was of Russian heritage. Al had a younger sister named Trudy who had Downs syndrome. During his childhood, Al's mother left the family and married another man. His father tried to keep the family together, but when his work required him to move to the Middle East, he was forced to put Al into an orphanage and Trudy into a mental institution, which was common practice for the mentally retarded in the 1940s.

A few years later, Al's father returned from the Middle East and the family was reunited until Al's father developed a serious case of cancer. After the death of their father, Al and Trudy were once again sent to the orphanage and the institution. Al was a troubled, but by no means dangerous youth. To keep himself out of trouble, he explored many hobbies, including acting and boxing. At one point, Al ran away from the orphanage and lived on the road with a pool shark, but after his mentor and friend was arrested, Al was returned to the orphanage. When Al was nineteen, he went to the mental instutution so he could be reunited with his sister, but discovered that she had contracted pneumonia and died, likely due to the institution's negligence.

As a young man, Al joined the United States Navy and became a pilot. It was there that he met his first wife, Beth (played by Susan Diol). Al and Beth were married, though due to various duty assignments, Al and Beth spent little time together. It was during these years that Al would be involved in the Apollo Program and was a member of the command crew of Apollo 8. Sometime between this and his first marriage, Al had a brief relationship with a Navy trauma nurse, Lt. Lisa Sherman (Terry Farrell). It was during this time that the then Lt. Calavicci was accused of raping and murdering his commanding officer's wife. He was exonerated. In the late 1960s, Al began a series of tours in Vietnam. The distance between him and Beth started to put a strain on his marriage. In early 1969, Al was captured by the Việt Cộng and would be a prisoner of war until 1973. By the time of his release, the Navy had declared Al as MIA and probably KIA; after a period of mourning, Beth re-married. A heartbroken Al, after returning to the States, had a subsequent series of marriages; however he always thought of Beth as the great love of his life. In the final episode, "Mirror Image", Sam changes history such that Beth is now aware that Al is still alive and a POW, and consequently does not remarry; Beth and Al, in the new timeline, have been married for decades and have four daughters.

In the years that followed, Al would rise through the Naval ranks, eventually becoming a Rear Admiral. Over the years, he would marry four more times, each marriage ending in divorce, as he sought to fill the gap left behind by his first love, Beth. As his personal life started deteriorating, Al started to abuse alcohol. While working on the Starbright Project, Al first met Dr. Samuel Beckett when, in a drunken rage, Al was beating up a vending machine. The two became fast friends and Sam started to help Al turn his life around.

After the Starbright Project, Sam and Al worked together on Project Quantum Leap, a time travel experiment based on Sam's own theories about time and space. When Sam prematurely activated his time machine and was propelled into the past, it was Al's duty to remain in contact with him through holographic projections tuned into their brainwaves.

Over the next few years, Al worked with Sam, providing him with information from their historical database and lending Sam advice and moral support. During Sam's journey, Al tried to get Sam to change the fate of his marriage to Beth, but to no avail. At one point, Al and Sam's positions were switched and Al leaped back in time to 1945. During this mission, Al was injured and propelled into imminent danger, but Sam saved him by exchanging places with him again.

Though separated by decades, Sam and Al continued to work closely together until the people at Project Quantum Leap lost contact with Sam. In the end, Sam emparted to Al's first wife that her MIA husband was alive and would someday return home. This event changed Al's past as he and Beth would remain together and have four daughters. How the change affected his friendship with Sam, or if Sam and Al ever met remains unclear.

Also, in the final episode, Al reveals that he had an uncle named 'Stawpah' who worked as a coal miner. Stawpah had spent so much time loading coal that he was permanently stooped over because of injuries. Sam had met Stawpah (played by Stephen McHattie) during the episode, but does not learn of the connection until the end - when Stawpah, having saved two other miners from a cave-in, leaps out and disappears. (As Al pointed out, his uncle had been dead for some time by now, having been killed in a mining accident.)

[edit] Al the Hologram

Al primarily appears through the series as a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. Al stands in a holographic chamber that projects the image of Sam and everything around him around Al. Any thing or person that Al is touching becomes visible to Sam, though with people, only the image comes in; Sam cannot hear their voice, nor can they hear Sam. Though only intended to be in contact with Sam, there were people that, for various reasons, were able to see and/or hear Al.

• Teresa Brookner ("Another Mother"), Christy Cole ("Maybe Baby"), Jessica Elroy ("A Tale of Two Sweeties"), a little girl named Maria ("Last Dance Before an Execution") and a whole children's choir ("Justice") - all children aged five and under can see and hear Al.
• Melny Trafford ("The Color of Truth") - briefly heard Al in an instant-from-death experience.
• Troian Claridge and Jimmy Giovanni ("A Portrait for Troian") - could hear Al's voice through Dr Mintz's EM-tracking equipment.
• Sybil, a Gypsy fortune teller ("Leaping in Without a Net") and Tamlyn Matsuda ("Temptation Eyes") - psychics who could sense Al's presence.
• Maggie Dawson ("The Leap Home, Part II - Vietnam") - saw Al as she was dying.
• Michael Blake ("A Little Miracle") - could see and hear Al due to neurons and mesons on a frequency similar to Sam's.
• Tibido Johnson and several fellow patients at Havenwell Hospital ("Shock Theater") - could see and hear Al due to mental handicap.

Al was also visible and audible to all animals as well as a ghost ("A Portrait for Troian"), an angel ("It's a Wonderful Leap") and the devil himself ("The Boogieman").

[edit] Trivia

• Al speaks fluent Italian and Russian and is comprehensive in Hebrew.
• Al's trademark cigars were Dean Stockwell's idea. Said Stockwell: "It was a good way to get free cigars for five years."
• Al appeared in a variety of loud or exotic outfits throughout the series. Why the character dresses like this is never explained, though Al says in "Future Boy" that the sober suit his lawyer was forcing him to wear to court was "boring". In terms of the series's production, it could be assumed that this was to reflect the show's projection of the near future fashions of the mid-to-late 90's, or possibly to allow casual viewers to immediately differentiate between Al (who is not actually "there") and other characters. The idea to have Al appear like this came from Donald Bellisario, the show's producer, as mentioned on the series 1 DVD documentary A Kiss with History: Remembering Quantum Leap.
• After Beth, Al had unsuccessful marriages to an unnamed Hungarian ("Leaping In Without a Net"), a Jewish woman named Ruthie ("Raped"), a woman named Sharon who occasionally sues him for more alimony ("Future Boy"), and Maxine, with whom Al honeymooned at Niagara Falls - as he did with Beth and Ruthie ("Honeymoon Express"). Al frequently teaches Sam about certain things it would be unlikely for Al to know about, claiming that he got the knowledge from one of his wives.
• Al was active in the civil rights movement in the 1950s, demonstrating against segregation ("The Color of Truth").
• In the episode "Deliver Us from Evil", Al says he does not eat meat.
• Al appears to be a strong environmentalist, outraged at ships dumping garbage into the ocean ("Sea Bride"). This rage almost distracted him from helping Sam, whom a gangster had thrown in amongst the trash of the Queen Mary at the time.
• Al is deeply superstitious, believing strongly in the supernatural and paranormal such as the devil ("M.I.A."), Egyptian curses ("The Curse of Ptah-Hotep"), and vampires ("Blood Moon"). However, he remains skeptical about the existence of UFOs ("Star Light, Star Bright"), and claimed that the psychic powers of Tamlyn Matsuda ("Temptation Eyes") amounted to coincidence.
• Al, unlike Sam, loved the disco atmosphere of the 1970s ("Disco Inferno", "Private Dancer"), and even had a manbag.